Tag Archives: Patents

Post navigation

In support of a new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regional office in Dallas, the Center for Innovation in Arlington said today it will serve as the area’s pro bono patent assistance center.

The pro bono center is part of the America Invents Act, which overhauls U.S. patent policy and creates four new satellite patent offices to help speed patent approvals. Other offices are planned for Denver, Silicon Valley and Detroit. The North Texas regional office is slated to open in downtown Dallas by next year.

The Center for Innovation executives are scheduled to make the announcement at today’s Tech Success, an annual event celebrating innovation hosted by the North Texas Regional Center for Innovation & Commercialization.

“This is going to spur a lot of innovation and inventions in the underserved population,” said Shekar Rao, the Center for Innovation’s vice president and chief technology officer.

The pro bono center is expected to open in June.

The center will match inventors with volunteer patent and intellectually property attorneys. Pro bono service will be provided to entrepreneurs whose household income does not exceed 300 percent of federal poverty guidelines. The poverty guideline for a family of four, for instance, is $23,550. The center will also have a sliding fee scale for anyone who exceeds the poverty income guidelines.

The U.S. patent office picked the Center for Innovation to launch and manage the pro bono center in part because the nonprofit has an existing partnership with federal agencies to facilitate the commercialization of government research and patents, according to Wes Jurey, chairman and CEO of the Center for Innovation.

Jurey and former Texas Supreme Court justice Craig Enoch are leading a steering committee to coordinate with law firms, law schools and corporate partners.

Because the pro bono center gets no federal funding, the committee is raising private money. Jurey expects first-year operations to cost around $100,000. The center plans to hire a director to run the pro bono center.

So far, Jurey said, the pro bono center has gotten “healthy interest” from law firms and attorneys who want to be involved.

“Many of the IP attorneys have found it fascinating,” Jurey said. “Seldom does an IP attorney get to do pro bono work.”

The US Patent and Trademark Office announced Monday that it plans to open a new regional office in the D/FW area that will employ about 125 workers.

North Texas was chosen as a location for the agency, which process and approves patents and trademarks, along with Detroit, Denver and Silicon Valley.

“This was a highly competitive process, so the people of the Dallas area should indeed be proud to be selected,” said Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank. “We all know the Dallas metropolitan area has a vibrant university and research community, a talented pool of workers, and a strong small business community.”

Commerce officials also cited the large number of engineers in North Texas, the area’s modest cost of living, and the ability to employ local veterans as important criteria the selection.

The regional offices are part of a wider effort to modernize the US patent law system.

“More than a quarter of the patents granted in 2010 in the Dallas area were awarded to small businesses, so the establishment of a satellite office in this area will empower those businesses to continue creating jobs and bringing innovation to the market place,” said Patent Office Director David Kappos.

Kappos said the exact number of jobs isn’t known, but the office should employ around 125 people, based upon employment at a similar office in Detroit.

“Almost all of them will be new jobs,” Kappos said. “We are relocating very few people — just a few senior managers and folks like that.”

The agency has not yet selected a specific site for the new office, Kappos said.